[don’t read this - it’s just totally random and miscellaneous thoughts] It’s really been a strange week for me (for a variety of reasons) - I’m off on vacation all week, and have been doing a lot of physical hard labor (over a period of a few days), and I’m just exhausted from it - over the weekend, moving all the junk from the garage into a U-haul truck so that a new garage door can be … [Read more...]
Movie: Peacock
August 17, 2018 By
Watched a really different movie tonight, “Peacock”, staring Cillian Murphy (whom I find to be always seemingly play very bizarre characters), Ellen Page, Susan Sarandon, and Bill Pullman. It’s kinda mystery, psycho thriller. Not scary though. If you intend to watch it, don’t read up on it before watching - it’ll ruin one of the many plot twists. Less than ninety mins long. … [Read more...]
Leisurely Sunday – Biking down the River Kwai
August 12, 2018 By
Embellishments follow. Lots of embellishments. Got invited to go on a bike ride today. Knowing I’d not been on my bike since 3-4 yrs ago, they said, “It’ll be fun - don’t worry, it’ll be an easy ride - just round the neighborhood, one time around” Ok, I said. For whatever reason, they convinced me to put on a blindfold as I got into their car, with my bike. The car stopped, and I was allowed … [Read more...]
Friday in the park – with The Little Girl
August 5, 2018 By
[sorry for the lack of paragraphs.] Re: Friday evening. The four of us get to the local park around 6:30, and the band is playing 80’s oldies (specifically, Chicago’s “Saturday in the park”). It’s cloudy out, not too hot. We set up our chairs more toward the water gizmo area, than our usual area near the music/stage. GranMaRose gets out the blanket and lays it out on the grass. The little girl is … [Read more...]
Friday in the park – “checkin in”
August 3, 2018 By
Place: Kelley Park (coordinates: 44.72846993248, -93.204396725) With the little girl, Baby Ruby (who still isn’t saying much to me), and GranMaRose, listening big band playing hits from Chicago (could be a rock band too, I guess) More later. Nice cool evening out here … [Read more...]
Initial build of Goober’s Towing from KC Workshop
August 2, 2018 By
Started this kit tonight, took less than 2 hours to get this far. Braced the interior walls, primed the exterior walls with gray primer. Dry brushed on the green paint, put some “white” on a sponge and splotged / textured the green paint, weathering it. Glued on acetate onto the interior walls over the window areas. Somehow, in the last several kits I started putting the acetate on the interior … [Read more...]
Loring Park Art Festival – part 2
July 29, 2018 By
As posted earlier today, we went to the Loring Park Art Festival yesterday. These are the two photographs I picked up. The photograph of Lake Calhoun looking toward the MPLS downtown skyline is truly awesome, and was the first one that caught my eye by this particular photographer. Its 10x14, with a 3” mat surrounding it, meaning I’m going to have to get a 16x20 frame for it. I know exactly where … [Read more...]
Loring Park Art Festival – part 1
July 29, 2018 By
Forgot to “check in” yesterday. Had a really nice day, looking at all the creative art that people produce. I came across a photographer who is local to the twin cities so he had a lot of downtown MPLS photos, and I had chosen one photograph print to buy (either 11x17 or maybe 16x20), unframed since the framed version was three times the cost of the unframed. As I was paying for it, another … [Read more...]
Build of Shipyard Brewery – 6 of 6
January 30, 2018 By
After not touching this project for the last week or so, as soon as I got home tonite, I sat down at the project table and started working on this effort again. Finished all the shingling of the front and rear main roofs, shingled the two dormers (front/rear) and glued them on. Added rolled tar paper for the roofs of the front/rear clerestory things, and glued the rear one on (I think I glued … [Read more...]
Build of Shipyard Brewery – 5 of 6
January 21, 2018 By
Worked on shingling the main roof tonight. Also, built the dormer (both front and rear), as well as the two clerestory things. You can see the front dormer and the front clerestory here on the shingled front roof. Still have to shingle the rear main roof, then glue on the rear dormer and rear clerestory. Both dormers and both clerestory’s need tarpaper roofing material added to them - or maybe the … [Read more...]
Build of Shipyard Brewery – 4 of 6
January 17, 2018 By
Added the roofs and tarpapered them, for the two extensions, and for the two enclosed exterior staircases. Still need to weather them. Added a middle vertical “plank” to each end to cover up the seams that were created when I joined the front half to the rear half. Shouldn’t point this out, while it looks a ton better than the seam, it also now shows a flaw with my weathering - you can see some... … [Read more...]
Build of Shipyard Brewery – 3 of 6
January 15, 2018 By
Getting there. Glued on the barn doors (and funky windows) to both of the “extensions”, then glued on the two extensions to the building itself (one in front, one on left side). Glued on the two exterior enclosed staircases (one in front, the other on right side). Not happy with the back of the side staircase back wall - need to really weather that up a bit (too dark). The roof is just mocked on, … [Read more...]
Build of Shipyard Brewery – 2 of 6
January 14, 2018 By
Weathered the rest of the walls tonight, painted, then stained and then glued on the windows (all 22 of them), glued one side/end wall to the front wall, and one side/end wall to the rear/back wall. Now need to glue each “L” section to each other, forming the building rectangle. The roof is just mocked on - not glued on yet - need to put on the shingles or tar paper before gluing them on. Need … [Read more...]
Build of Shipyard Brewery – 1 of 6
January 13, 2018 By
This is “Shipyard Brewery”. Started this today, and got a lot done with it. This particular model kit is what’s called a “false front” building. The kit is designed to build only the front half of the building, and there would be no “back” to it - with the intention of placing it ag...ainst a wall on your model railroad “layout”. If it’s against a wall, your visitors wouldn’t be able to see its … [Read more...]
Two or three (once again, profound) thoughts of the day.
January 7, 2018 By
I’ve written ~6 long winded blog posts (including this particular one) since receiving my new typewriter style keyboard in the mail last week - all of which (including this one), have been typed via the glass iPad screen. Methinks I need to move the new typewriter keyboard to the end table of my couch/lazyboy. (life, sometimes, can be, so very hard, for me.) (man, was that a Christopher Walken … [Read more...]
Movies – Molly’s Game
January 6, 2018 By
Went to see “I, Tonya” at the Uptown Theater, getting there ten minutes before the movie started - thinking it would be pretty easy to get in. Holy Crowd, Batman! It was sold out! Fortunately, the Lagoon Theater is just a block away, and had a choice of seeing Star Wars, “Three Billboards”, or something called “Molly’s Game”. Didn’t know a thing about the 2nd or 3rd movies, but noticed that … [Read more...]
McDuffs Buildings – Main building – update
October 1, 2017 By
Spent the evening working on McDuff’s main building, adding in the (teal) portico (“drive-through”) scaffolding, weathering the walls be scuffing them, the weathering really shows well on the red walls, but not as much as the driftwood colored walls. Going to have to try another method for those. Added the (teal) lower storefront windowed / front door wall - that was almost a fiasco because I’d … [Read more...]
Build of Staton Marine (4 of 4)
September 2, 2017 By
I hadn’t taken the time to weather the walls of Stanton Marine. I’d done the roof, but not the walls, and it showed (I’ve included a couple of before pics - prior to the wall weathering). So, this morning, I finished this structure by using 2-3 pigment powders, and also 2-3 alcohol inks. It really looks so much better with the walls aged. Took me about an hour or so. Very happy how this kit turned … [Read more...]
Buld of Staton Marine (3 of 4)
August 24, 2017 By
After letting “Staton Marine” sit around for a week or so, I gave it a go tonight and it’s now ~90% completed. Only two things left to do, put in some under the roof trim wood under the three upside down “V” sections of the roof, and then weather the walls a lot by scuffing them up a little bit. I loved how the roof turned out - with the battens, and the weathering I did on it, using some alcohol … [Read more...]
